During the period between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, there is a flurry of activity as citizens begin to decorate homes, offices, stores and town squares in celebration of the holiday season. One of the most popular decorations is the Christmas tree. Families and friends travel to tree farms or drive to neighborhood merchants seeking to find an evergreen tree to bring home and decorate. Once a evergreen tree is brought home, it must be installed in a tree stand before it can be decorated and transformed into a Christmas tree. Installing the tree in a tree stand and positioning it in a vertically straight position, is one of, if not the most, arduous task confronting the Christmas celebrators. The present invention provides an adjustable tree stand which enables the user to quickly and easily install and maintain an evergreen tree in a fixed, upright position.
One of the most conventional and widely used Christmas tree stands found in stores today is of the type which combines a water bowl with means to secure the tree. Typically, the water bowl has four legs and means for threading bolts through the rim of the bowl, the tops of the legs and into the trunk of the tree. Usually, the user of these devices must position the tree in the bowl and either hold the tree with one hand or have a second person hold the tree, while the user slowly rotates the bolts into the tree trunk. Since most tree trunks have irregular surfaces, one simply cannot equally rotate each bolt into the tree trunk. Rather, with these devices, it is common to rotate each one the bolts partially into the trunk of the tree, step back and observe whether the tree is standing upright, adjust the bolts, observe the tree again, further adjust the bolts until the tree finally is in the desired position, then tighten the bolts. Needless to say, this installation can be difficult, time-consuming and very frustrating. Moreover, the water bowl type stand is offered in several sizes to accommodate different diameters of tree trunks; thus the diameter of the trunk must be matched to the corresponding stand.
There have been numerous attempts in the prior art to provide adjustable tree stands. Early efforts include, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,441,473 to Davis which discloses a simply tree stand having a pair of vertically disposed cross-arms removably secured together to form two sides of a triangle and slotted to received a tapered wedge which forms the third side of the triangle. A tree trunk is positioned between the two cross arms and held in place by sliding the wedge against the tree. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,786,641 to Applegate, a stand is provided for supporting a Christmas tree in an upright position comprising a base portion having an upwardly tapering pin in the center thereof and three legs attached to the underside thereof. The three legs rotate about the base and can be pivoted outwardly to form a tri-stand configuration. A central hole is drilled or bored into the bottom of the trunk conforming to the size of the tapered pin for securing the tree to the base. Neither Davis nor Applegate provide any means for clamping or otherwise securing the tree in an upright position, thus increasing the likelihood that the tree could fall.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,639,877 provides a Christmas tree stand comprising separable sections held together by an adjustable clamp. One of the separable sections is designed to receive the offset end of a clamping arm. The clamping arm extends to a point adjacent to the intersection point of the two sections, with the free end of the clamp extending outwardly. When the clamp is forced into contact with a tree trunk positioned between the two sections, the tree trunk is locked into an upright position.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,699,347 to Kuhnley discloses a tree stand having a circular ring base. Extending upward from said base, in a tripod arrangement, are three legs. Two legs are contained in a double legs assembly which are hingedly attached at two brackets on the ring base, by two pins. The third leg is removably attached to a bracket on the ring base by a removable pin. The device further includes a clamp arm which is hingedly connected to the socket leg. The clamp arm, which may be serrated, is spring-based in order to apply pressure against the trunk when the clamp is pushed downward to help the tree trunk in position.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,808 to Roy, a Christmas tree stand is provided having a jaw assembly with a bottom for slidably engaging a tree trunk and an adjustable locking bar, located above the bottom of the jaw assembly, for forcibly clamping the trunk laterally between the bar and jaw assembly. Roy's jaw assembly does not provide means for controlling the rotation of the leg members, nor does it provide any means for locking the leg members in place.
Despite the teachings of the prior art, a need still exists for an adjustable tree stand which can accommodate trees of various diameters and irregular surfaces and safely hold larger trees. Such a tree stand should be capable of being assembled quickly and efficiently. Additionally, such a tree stand should enable the user to easily position a tree therein and clamp and secure the tree in an upright position. The tree stand also should be lightweight and designed for compact storage.